Borderlands Read online

  Teddy runs a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘Remember the other night when we were hiding from Sharr? She said something about the king having a Plan B. Like she had to nick out of this region before more trouble showed up. Reckon this is what she meant?’

  Something heavy settles in my stomach. Sharr Morrigan is on the run, just like us. Of course she doesn’t want to get too close to the king’s secret frontier army. Only an idiot would walk into the military hive of their enemy . . .

  Yet that’s exactly what we must do. We’ve risked everything to reach the land beyond the Valley – and it’s too late to back out now. Our lives are worth nothing in Taladia – only the prices upon our heads. If we hope to live out the week, let alone the rest of our lives, we must somehow cross the Magnetic Valley.

  And now, we must sneak past King Morrigan’s army to do so.

  All that we know of our destination comes from stories: rumours and fairy tales, whispers of a paradise. A land where the king doesn’t bomb his people. A land where we will be free. Safe. Alive.

  I once asked Lukas for details, a day or so after we escaped from the airbase. But he shook his head at the question, looking weary.

  ‘I don’t know, Danika. My father bragged about his wars all the time – it was our dinnertime conversation, to find out how the battles were going. Wars in the south, in the west . . . He loved to boast about his empire expanding.’

  ‘But not the east?’

  ‘No,’ Lukas said quietly. ‘Never the east. He refused to even mention the country’s name.’

  ‘But didn’t you ever –?’

  ‘He said I wasn’t old enough to learn the truth. The way he feels about that country . . . it’s more than just dislike, Danika. He doesn’t just want to conquer it. It’s something more. Something deeper.’

  ‘But he didn’t even tell you its name?’

  Lukas released a slow breath, looking distant. ‘My father’s not a gentle man, Danika. I learned it was best not to ask.’

  And so here we are, with nothing to go on but rumours and legends. Rumours and legends – and an army of King Morrigan’s soldiers to keep us from our destination.

  ‘Don’t worry about them now,’ I say, when the silence stretches too long. ‘We’ve still got a way to go before we reach them, right? Let’s just focus on this swampy area, and then –’

  ‘The borderlands,’ Maisy says, quietly.

  ‘Huh?’

  She looks a little flustered as we all turn to her, but she takes a deep breath and explains. ‘The watery region that Lukas saw – I think it’s called the borderlands. I read a book about amphibians once, and it said most Taladian frog species lived somewhere called the borderlands, with water and land all tangled up together. I never realised it was near the Valley, but this must be it, mustn’t it?’

  Teddy nods slowly. ‘The edge of Taladia.’

  ‘From what I read,’ Maisy says, ‘I don’t think the borderlands are a natural phenomenon. They’re a bit like the wastelands: the result of magic gone wrong. Except they were tainted so long ago, barely a century into the Alchemical Renaissance. There are no official records of why it happened. . . .’

  ‘Or what sort of weird, alchemical dangers might be there?’

  Maisy gives an apologetic nod. ‘Exactly.’

  I suck down a sharp breath. In the wastelands, we faced quicksand, plateaus, and endless desert. None of it made geographical sense; it was the result of alchemy bomb testing. Unnatural. Twisted. Magic gone wrong.

  But if Maisy is right, the tainting of the borderlands goes back even further. The Alchemical Renaissance was centuries ago, when attempts to transmute lead into gold sparked the rediscovery of alchemy in Taladia. And it marked the end of the Dark Ages – a time of chaos and barbarism, when all knowledge of alchemy was lost.

  If this landscape was polluted in a time of such upheaval, who knows how its magic might behave?

  ‘Great,’ Clementine says. ‘This will add a lovely footnote to the end of this trip.’ She sounds so sour that I half-expect a diatribe about letting filthy scruffers plan the route. But instead she just narrows her eyes, crosses her arms, and waits in silence for someone else to speak.

  Lukas turns towards the borderlands, and we all follow his gaze. We can’t see anything from here, of course – just trees, trees and more trees. But beyond those trunks lies a world of streams, islands, shores and lakes. Beyond that lies a growing army: a bullet in the chamber of King Morrigan’s unknown plan.

  And beyond that lies the Valley.

  There’s a moment of silence, as we all stare numbly through the trees.

  ‘Well,’ says Teddy eventually, ‘who’s up for mushroom porridge?’

  The night is long and quiet. I volunteer for first watch, since there’s no hope of sleep with all this new information rushing through my head. The worry is like a parasite – like an infestation of nits back in Rourton. The little buggers won’t stop niggling at you, and scratching just makes them keen to return.

  I drop my head into my hands, take a deep breath, and try to refocus. I’m supposed to be watching for danger, not mentally reviewing all the possible reasons for King Morrigan to amass an army.

  After an hour or so, I jump at the sound of movement, but it’s just a figure extricating itself from my crewmates’ huddle. At first I think it must be Lukas coming to keep me company, but when she steps into the moonlight I recognise Maisy.

  ‘Hi,’ I whisper. ‘Can’t sleep?’

  Maisy shakes her head. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘Course not.’ I scoot across and gesture for her to sit beside me. ‘Anything wrong?’

  Maisy shrugs as she slips onto the boulder. She reminds me of a little bird even more than a mouse – light and skittish, always ready to flitter away. We sit in silence for a while, gazing out into the trees.

  ‘I have to tell you something,’ Maisy says.

  I force my face into a politely interested expression. Really I’m burning with curiosity, but you’ve got to take it easy with Maisy. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s about Lukas.’

  Well, that’s not what I was expecting. ‘What’s wrong? Is he all right?’

  ‘I think so.’ Maisy looks at her knees. ‘But Danika . . . I don’t think he told us everything he saw today.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Maisy hesitates. ‘I was watching him when he told us what the eagle saw. He didn’t look comfortable – he looked like he was still hiding something.’

  ‘Of course he looked uncomfortable. He’d just seen his father’s army bunching up around the Valley we want to get into!’ A note of defensive irritation slips into my voice, and Maisy shies back. I give an apologetic smile, and force myself to speak more calmly. ‘Sorry.’

  Maisy looks back down at her knees. ‘I watch people, Danika. I know how to listen when other people are talking. I know when someone feels guilty about something – when they’re hiding a secret.’

  I move to interrupt, but she shakes her head and keeps speaking. ‘And that’s not all. At dinner tonight, he . . .’

  My mouth feels dry. ‘At dinner he what?’

  ‘When the rest of us were eating porridge, Lukas excused himself early. Everyone was too tired to pay attention, but he was going through the supplies, Danika. I saw him. He was looking through the hunters’ packs, sneaking things into his pocket . . .’

  The words hit me like a slap. ‘Are you saying Lukas is stealing from us?’

  ‘No, no!’ Maisy shakes her head, looking terrified by my reaction. ‘No, not like that. Just a few basic supplies, that’s all. I think . . . I think he’s going to leave.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I think he saw something else when he borrowed that bird’s eyes, and it’s scared him into running away.’

  Another silence. I stare at Maisy, at a loss for what
to say. If you collected all the tense silences in this conversation, you could erase half the noise in Taladia. Finally, I manage to cajole my tongue into working again. ‘You’re wrong.’

  Maisy doesn’t look up from her knees. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘I know so,’ I snap, too affected by her words to even soften my tone. ‘What do you think he is, some kind of traitor? Just because he’s the king’s son? It’s not his fault who his father is – people can’t choose their relatives.’

  Maisy looks up, and suddenly she’s not a timid little mouse. Her eyes blaze with all the power of her Flame proclivity, and this time it’s me who shrinks back. ‘I know that,’ she says. ‘I know you can’t choose your father.’

  It takes me a second to realise what she means, and then my stomach twists. Maisy’s father was a ruthless businessman who tried to marry her off for money. That’s the entire reason the twins left Rourton – why they traded a life of richie opulence for this dangerous trek through the wild.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  Maisy stares at me a moment longer, then nods. ‘I hope I’m wrong, Danika. I just thought you should know. Just in case . . . I hoped it might hurt less if you had some warning.’

  She slips from the boulder and pads away. I want to call her back, to apologise again, but she’s already snuggled back down beside her sister. So I stare after her, blink, and then turn back towards the trees.

  Lukas wouldn’t leave us, I tell myself. And he wouldn’t keep secrets. Not after everything we’ve survived together. Maisy’s just paranoid, that’s all – and who can blame her, after what she’s been through?

  But then I remember the afternoon, when Lukas pulled his mind from the eagle’s eyes. The way he looked down to disguise his expression. The way he hesitated, pausing between answers. And how he chose his words so carefully . . . like a boy with something to hide.

  We reach the borderlands a few hours after noon. The forest ends at the edge of a cliff, which skirts around the region like a picture frame. And the picture within is so startling that it takes my breath away. This isn’t just a swamp. It isn’t just a network of streams. It’s something else entirely.

  A sea of shining threads: water and earth, river and island . . . all entangled in an enormous knot. When I squint into the afternoon sun, it looks like someone has splattered tendrils of silver paint across a wall. Some islands sprout foliage so thick and sprawling that you can hardly see the water separating them.

  But in the areas I can see clearly . . . well, it’s a far cry from Rourton’s alleyways. The water gleams and shifts like a thousand moving snakes beneath the sky. Higher chunks of land form plateaus; lower areas sink like sighs beyond my sight, and ribbons of waterfall tumble between them.

  ‘Wow,’ Teddy says. ‘That’s it.’

  For a second I think he’s talking about the borderlands, but then I follow his gaze. He stares towards the horizon, where enormous mountains line the sky. The Eastern Boundary Range. Those peaks are legendary for their height, impassable even by biplane. They mark our eastern border, cutting off Taladia from the land beyond.

  A space between two mountains draws my gaze. I focus on the V-shaped chink of light.

  The Magnetic Valley.

  A prickle runs across my skin. This is it. After all this time struggling across Taladia, it’s surreal to think I’m seeing the Valley with my own eyes. It’s right there, just like any other landmark, and I don’t know whether I’m stunned or thrilled or disappointed. It looks so ordinary from here; just a gap between mountains. But what did I expect it to do – jump up off the ground and start yodelling to welcome us?

  ‘I don’t see an army,’ Clementine says, shading her eyes.

  Lukas shakes his head. ‘We’re too far away to see from here. But trust me, they’re real. Clustering around the Valley’s entrance.’ He gives a little snort of distaste. ‘Like bees on a hive.’

  We stand in silence, gazing at the distant mountains. This is it. This is the gateway into our new home – whatever that may entail.

  A breeze blusters across the cliff, churning dust around our ankles. Clementine shifts her weight uneasily. ‘What do you think it will be like?’

  ‘The Valley?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, the land beyond.’

  ‘Like the stories, I reckon,’ Teddy says. ‘You know – food, freedom, paradise and all that.’

  ‘But they’re just stories.’

  Teddy shrugs. ‘Yeah, they’re stories. And that smuggler’s song is just a song. But it still got us here, didn’t it? Just because it’s a story doesn’t mean there’s no truth in it.’

  An arch of crumbling stone curves down from the cliff, offering the gentlest route into the border­lands. We descend in single file, crab-walking with our hands behind our backs to keep a firm grip on the soil. It’s a long process: slow and awkward. Pebbles spill beneath my fingers and occasionally I lose my footing, but there’s always a chunk of clay or clump of weeds to swipe. I bet we could take this path in five minutes at a sprint – but since we don’t fancy breaking our necks, it’s an hour’s climb at least.

  By the time we hit the bottom, sweat plasters my shirt across my back and into my armpits. My hands burn raw from grasping at weeds, and my legs are stiff from the unusual angle.

  We stand upon a narrow peninsula, which runs like ribbon between two lakes. I head for the nearest shoreline to wash my face. Then I pause, my hands hovering just above the water. I glance at Maisy, her warning about the borderlands still fresh in my mind. ‘Think it’s safe?’

  Maisy hesitates, uncertain.

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Teddy says. He splashes a fistful of water across his face. As droplets run down his skin, he gives a moan of relief. ‘Oh yeah, that’s better.’ Then his face twists into a hideous snarl. ‘Argh! I’m mutating into an alchemical frog monster!’

  Clementine looks terrified for a moment, then cuffs him on the shoulder when she realises he’s joking. ‘You are the most immature –’

  ‘Froggary?’ Teddy suggests.

  ‘– infant I have ever met.’

  ‘Hey, if I’m an infant, aren’t I supposed to be immature?’ Teddy says. ‘Don’t want me growing old before my time, do you?’

  The water is cool and sweet upon my palms, and feels even better when I cup my hands and tip it down my shirt. I hesitate, then dunk my entire head under the surface. It’s worth a little chill to feel like I’m on the right side of the human-to-mud-monster spectrum again.

  We haven’t eaten lunch today, and I’m tempted to request a meal break. But we’re in a vulnerable position, and we can’t afford complacency. Just because we haven’t seen Sharr for a few days doesn’t mean she’s not out there. Our fake foxary trails will only fool her for so long. We have to be prepared for pursuit – and that means no rest stops until we find a better hiding place.

  Teddy wipes a hand down his chin, splattering the rest of us with second-hand water. ‘Wish I could see Sharr’s face when she rocks up to this place. So long as we walk in the streams, there won’t be any tracks for her to follow.’

  My lips twist into a smile. He’s right, of course. When Sharr realises we’ve headed into the borderlands, she’ll pitch a fit. I wouldn’t want to be one of her companions when the Morrigan anger bomb goes off.

  ‘Well then,’ I say, ‘let’s give her something to get angry about.’

  We wade along the lake’s edge, following the curve of the shore. Water laps up my shins, occasionally sloshing to waist-height when I trip into an underwater cleft. We can’t see the mountains from down here, but Maisy does a quick calculation of the sun’s angle and assures us we’re heading in the right direction.

  ‘And if we get lost,’ I say, ‘Lukas can hijack a bird to find our way.’

  As we trek onwards, I melt into the rhythm of the borderlands. There is constant s
ound here, working to mask our footsteps. The swish of wind in the trees, the gurgle of water, the occasional croak of a frog. The afternoon sun is warm upon my face, and I find myself in something close to good spirits. I feel like we’ve earned this break – this moment of things going right. Teddy’s still in a mischievous mood, and every so often he flicks a palm of water at the back of ­Clementine’s head. She whirls to face him with a scowl.

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’ he says, trying and failing to look innocent. ‘Must’ve slipped.’

  Clementine shakes her hair like a dog, spraying water from her blonde curls into Teddy’s face. He looks surprised, then gives a laugh. ‘Nice one, Clemmy.’

  ‘If you start calling me Clemmy,’ she retorts, ‘I’ll drop a spider into your mouth while you’re sleeping.’

  ‘Yum,’ Teddy says. ‘Extra protein.’

  After a few hours of wading, we traipse back onto shore for a while. As nice as it would be to make this whole journey in the water, the encroaching dusk brings a chill to the air. If the choice is between ‘small risk of Sharr finding our trail’ and ‘serious risk of pneumonia’, we’re savvy enough to opt for the lesser of two evils.

  Even so, our luck holds out. The shore is marshy, and our footsteps dissolve within minutes of forming. Our only permanent trail is composed of a few broken twigs.

  As evening falls, we search for a spot to make camp. This will be our first night in the borderlands, and I’m not keen on sleeping in the middle of a bog. The land here is low and soggy, barely above water level, and dozens of tiny streams knot in and out of any dry patches. So we wade onwards, from stream to land to mud and back again. My toes feel like cold prunes inside my boots. Even when we cross the land bars, my socks are so wet that every step is a squelch.

  We finally spot a higher patch of land, bristling with trees. Maisy points. ‘What about there?’

  ‘Worth a shot,’ I say.

  Five minutes of mud-shuffling later, we find ourselves wading towards the island. Two rivers fold around it, deep and flowing. This isn’t the shallow sludge that I’ve become used to; the water reaches my waist, then my torso, and I have to hoist my pack above my head. The last thing we need is soggy food. The current drags me sideways, but I grunt and grit my teeth to fight it.